If gravity(and light) are fundamentally aware, wouldn't life, or other manifestations of this awareness be more pervasive?

Jacek,

Thanks for the explanations. We do agree that we do not expect a 100% (and forever) relation of theory to reality, so "certainty" is impossible. But as I explained above, we can hope for and work toward an anomaly-free theory which would give us greater faith in the "probability" of correct understanding.

I understood your use of "illusion" to mean "idea" and we do agree on this point.

I now understand the idea behind your experiment. Thanks!

I do believe I understand space-time as "the carrier of the Bit", but I view it as the carrier of (packets of) energy and, as I noted in my essay, it is not a 'bit' of information until it triggers some threshold that essentially 'records' the information in some structure. The structure may be as simple as a hydrogen atom or as complex as DNA or neural network. There are no "bits" traveling through space-time, there is only energy registering at the end of the travel. As far as I can see the net results are the same, but the lack of independent existence of the 'bit' means it could never "give rise to" physical reality, as Wheeler suggested. It has meaning only in the context of a pre-existing physical reality. On the other hand, the information *does* give rise to our mental images or ideas of physical reality, which your diagram seems to allude to.

You and I are largely in agreement on these issues except for the Platonic math and the reality of the 'bit' before it registers. As I note above, we agree that "space-time is not the background, but the material of matter and energy itself..." and are close to agreement on "the self-organized space-time in the form of [waves] being physical world and perceptual experience (mental world) at the same time".

In agreement on these issues we are close to a unification of ideas. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

John,

Perhaps part of the problem is that you're trying to fit many things together while I'm trying to derive many things from one. I suspect that there are many more ways to fit things together than there are to derive them from an initial unity. I'll try to address gravity and electromagnetism in a separate comment below. In this comment I'll address your question about pervasive life:

John, like you, I live on a ranch. It's near the Pacific Ocean and has a major creek, a decent natural pond, and two forests, a eucalyptus and a redwood forest. I see life everywhere I look, in any direction. It's hard to see how it could be more pervasive.

If you mean on the moon or on other planets it's harder to say. If one believes that, with a weak primordial consciousness field, it took billions of years for local, mobile, lifeforms to reach our stage of intelligent awareness, then it's pretty clear why this hasn't happened on the moon. Who knows what's on other planets? I'm not an Earth-centrist, but there is no mandate, as far as I can see, that every inch of the universe be covered with life. Once life does come into existence (as sustainable living forms) it operates pretty much as you describe in your many observant and insightful comments.

Thanks again,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi Lev,

That's a reasonable question, but it doesn't have a simple answer. For one thing, it's the fundamental 'entity' of my theory, and fundamentals are often undefined by specific words. The theory tends to define them. But more significantly, it is subjective, which increases the difficulty. I am self-aware and aware, as are you, so I assume you know what it is. It is simpler to say what it's not. It's not thinking, reasoning, remembering, projecting, or any other logic-based or information-based activity. These all involve the interaction of the field awareness with the local mass flow(s) in a neural network, which, as I indicated in a comment above, can involve countless neural interconnections in a 4D (i.e., 'dynamic') structure that is created by incoming energy which becomes 'information' when it is registered.

Consider the definition of 'mass' and 'gravity' and 'gravitational field' in general relativity:

In my essay I noted Yau points out just how poorly mass is defined in general relativity (very poorly!). To this I would add the following from Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's 'Gravitation' (page 399):

"...nowhere has a precise definition of the term "gravitational field" been given -- nor will one be given. Many different mathematical entities are associated with gravitation: the metric, the Riemannian curvature tensor, the Ricci curvature tensor, the curvature scalar, the covariant derivative, the connection coefficients, etc. Each of these plays an important role in gravitation theory [and] the terms "gravitational field" and "gravity" refer in a vague, collective sort of way to all of these entities."

That's pretty much how the definition of "awareness" has to stand.

I think you picked my favorite Jaynes saying as well. And the number of parameters involved in our current theories does give one something to think about does it not?

Thanks for reading and commenting Lev,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi Akinbo,

Thanks for reading and for your gracious comments. I've observed that you always ask good questions!

1.) As I noted in an earlier essay, Eugenio Calabi in 1953 essentially asked if our Master equation was valid:

"Could there be gravity ... even if space is a vacuum totally devoid of matter?"

He reasoned: "...being non-linear, gravity can interact with itself and in the process create mass", and he conjectured, "curvature makes gravity without matter possible". The Calabi-Yau manifold confirms our Master equation-based only on gravity -but his conjecture was based on special geometry in which "time is frozen".

As I mentioned in technical notes, the uncharged electromagnetic field has energy, hence mass, but only interacts with charge, hence does not react with itself. The gravitomagnetic field energy has mass and interacts with mass, hence does interact with itself (in local motion). This has two consequences. The self-interaction vortex leads to soliton-like particles and the particles can be confined in a 'self-generated' field, hence achieving what is currently assigned to "color" in QCD. Thus the one field can interact with itself in a Yang-Mills gauge theory of mass. I would replace the "gluons" [which are considered to interact with themselves] by the C-field. In this case QCD has 10 extra parameters used to "fit" data.

2.) I'm pleased that you agree the threshold provides the real meaning of 'bit'.

The quantum analysis (which falls out of my master equation) leads to discreteness only for 'bound' systems. A free electron (say) has no well-defined properties (other than charge, which, in my theory results from binding the particle together.) When it is bound to a proton then it has discrete orbit-determined wavelength and energy. Thus a hydrogen atom can undergo structural change to record a 'bit' of information. Many higher levels of structure can be 'in'-formed.

3.) I will answer 3 in a later comment.

Finally you ask about gravitational action and action-at-a-distance. The first FQXi contest I participated in was "What's ultimately possible in physics?" I conclude my essay with:

"What is ultimately impossible is to explain gravity and consciousness; the essence of G and C (self-attraction, self-awareness, and ability to act) will forever remain mysterious. This defines the ultimate possibility of physics."

In other words, gravity, as the souce of action, matter, and awareness will always be a mystery. But it's behavior is describable, and it's self-evolution may be 'understood'. It's essence will never be understood. Newton was surely right to tread carefully there.

Thanks again. It's a pleasure to discuss these things with you.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

PS. As I have provided links to two earlier essays, I may as well provide the link to my last essay, The Nature of the Wave Function. In it I present a formulation that, in Geometric Algebra terms is a 'trivector', defined to have volume and orientation but not a fixed 'shape'. It occurs to me that this in some ways describes your 'monad' as an amorphous extended entity.

Edwin,

I guess I would have to say that my starting point is my own existence. I know that when I look into the abyss, I can't see the bottom of it. I had this experience once, of sensing that anything which would qualify as God, would be so utterly objective and removed from any sense of experience that it would be about as meaningless to life, as life seems to be to it. I remember that it shook me up enough that I felt disoriented, but being tenacious, I kept coming back to the idea. After about three days I thought I'd finally come to grips with it. Then I got a call that my father had died. Suffice to say, I kind of left the idea alone after that and just accepted my subjectivity as who I am.

John,

We all start with our own existence. I still believe the essential difference in our approach is that you're trying to fit many things together while I'm trying to derive many things from one. You range from galaxies to atoms to social and economic entities and bounce all over the place. I can't tell what your starting point is, or if you have one. That is not possible in the approach I'm taking. Yet you argue as if your ideas about awareness and electromagnetism and gravity are based on scientific analysis. I think you just like playing with ideas. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it's not addressing the problem I'm trying to solve. Not that you need to address it. The topic of the contest is based on the reality of information or 'bits' as compared to physical reality. Information brings in the topic of awareness, interpretation, and meaning, which has typically been avoided in physics. I'm taking advantage of the topic to present my ideas.

It's hard to interpret the above except that you had a profound experience followed by an emotional shock. Not really sure what "just accepted my subjectivity as who I am" means. Again, we all accept ourselves. It's hard to address specific questions or comments when the topic wanders all over the place. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. There are people (I hope) who are interested in the problem of deriving our current universe from a single field as opposed to the hundreds of fields that Susskind bases his 'Multiverse' or 'Landscape' on. That is best done from specific hypotheses and equations and analyses and predictions. Otherwise it's just philosophizing and BS'ing.

Have Fun,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

In a comment above John said, "I would say light is aware and gravity is the form it chooses to manifest."

I did not ask John how he came to this conclusion, but his comment made me realize that it might be relevant to describe how I came to my conclusion. I did not just wake up one day and say "I think gravity is aware." Instead, after writing a long book about life (unpublished) I realized that I had effectively represented (without saying so) consciousness as a field. I then asked myself, if consciousness is a field, how does it interact physically? I knew force equations for fields, but what could the force equation for the consciousness field be? In about two hours I decided that the only thing that made sense to me was a Lorentz-like equation that depended on mass and velocity. This was for many reasons that are laid out in 'Gene Man's World' and are too lengthy for a comment.

Although I took general relativity as a graduate student, we did not cover Einstein's weak field equations, and if I ever knew them I had forgotten them. And as an atomic and molecular physicist at NASA, I did not work in general relativity. So it was only later that I realized I had "rediscovered" the weak field equations of gravity, first proposed by Maxwell, investigated by Heaviside, and then derived from Einstein's field equations.

The point here is that I did not come to the key consciousness equation through gravity, but instead came to the gravity equation by analysis of consciousness! I consider this significant. It is quite different from one day deciding "I think gravity is aware!" My master equation, based on one initial field, I derived later and it leads to the circulation equation and the force equation as well as a generalized quantum equation and Schrodinger's equation. Over the last seven years I have found a number of reasons to consider this a good theory and have not found good reasons to reject it. Obviously it's a hard sell.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Edwin,

    I previously expressed my views that empty space is the "single field." It doesn't need explanation, since it doesn't physically consist of anything, not even a singularity. Yet this lack of physicality does give it two properties, infinite and absolute, since it isn't bounded, bent, moved, etc.

    Since this brings up the whole Big Bang argument, I was trying to avoid it.

    Yes, that overwhelming "objectivity" would be space. (I've spent a fair amount of time staring up at night.)

    Edwin,

    Not to range too far afield here, but you might want to think about plugging political and social movements into that formula as well.

    John,

    Thanks for the suggestion. There are many more fundamental steps I have to do at this time. My first response would be that there are many more appropriate ways to model socio-political movements. But that is merely a gut feel. The fact is that non-linear effects are famously anti-intuitive, and I don't yet have enough experience with my new non-linearizing technique to have developed any feel for where the limits are. It is a big change from my earlier assumptions, and I'm still digesting the implications.

    Living in the middle of a big ranch I am sometimes tempted to wonder if there is not something like a consciousness-field density factor that operates in big cities! In some ways they seem to resemble the bee hives that I have all over the place.

    Best,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

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    • Post #39

    Edwin

    "I do not assert how this existence came into being, only how it is, in my opinion"

    Yes you do. Because in your response to John, as quoted, you say: "It was a long process, but without the built-in awareness, I don't believe it would have ever happened. No possible arrangement of matter is capable of creating awareness from a non-aware piece of matter".

    This is an assertion about how existence came into being. It is the fundamental premise upon which your theory rests [note in a subsequent response to John: "while I'm trying to derive many things from one"]. And it is wrong, because there is no experienceable evidence that this is so.

    The start point can only be, ie we cannot know why this came about (that is the function of religion-to 'fill this gap'), that:

    There is existence of some form or other, Based on input received, we can identify that the form of existence we can know has two fundamental characteristics:

    -what occurs, does so, independently of the processes which detect it

    -it involves difference, ie comparison of inputs reveals difference, and therefore that there is change/alteration.

    Since there is existence (which necessitates uniqueness) and difference (which necessitates a different uniqueness), then physical existence, ie that which is potentially knowable to us is sequence. Physical existence is a sequence of discrete definitive physically existent states of whatever comprises it, each such state being the reality at the time that it occurs. This is the start point for physics.

    "You have very fixed beliefs"

    I do not have any beliefs. I am stating, generically, what occurs (as above). This exposes another fallacy in your thinking. Physical existence is all that we can potentially know. Knowing being a function of a physical process. We are in an existentially closed system. Alternatives, which may or may not exist, or not available to us. We must investigate existence as manifest to us, which is definitive, and not invoke beliefs about what or may not otherwise be there.

    Paul

    Edwin (Lev)

    On the contrary, as per my comment above, 'aware' has a very simple physical definition. It involves the receipt of physical input, which is then subsequently processed, that not being a physical process. A brick receives physical input, it just does not have the evolved capability to then process it.

    This is the somewhat obvious point. Existence is independent of us, and what we can know of it is determined (and limited) by the physical mechanism whereby we (and all sentient organisms)are enabled to be aware of it.

    Paul

    "I do not have any beliefs."

    That statement alone is why I will not argue with you.

    Hi Edwin and Hi Lev,

    I agree with Edwin, that 'fundamental entities' may sometimes be best definable in the negative terms. That is in terms of what is 'not aware'.

    In this line, I will like to know from Ed, whether Computers and Drones that see and accurately shoot missiles are aware?

    Penrose talked on this at length in his book, The Emperor's New Mind. Can Artificial Intelligence when further advanced become or simulate Awareness?

    Then, can awareness be destroyed or created?

    Can what loses its existence still be aware? Can what comes into existence from nothing acquire awareness?

    Although I dont wholly buy his idea, Leibniz talks of something like 'awareness' in his Monadology, which he says is similar to 'perception'. http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/leibmona.pdf

    Of course, these are tricky questions I have asked and Ed has accused me of asking such :)

    Cheers,

    Akinbo

    Hi everyone,

    I just want to state a position regarding "awareness" radically different from those discussed here.

    Of course, we don't know what "awareness" means scientifically, but I gradually came to the conclusion--identical to that of von Neumann--that whatever it means "it cannot fail to differ considerably from what we consciously and explicitly consider as mathematics", and hence what we presently consider as physics.

    What he meant, and I came to the same point also, is that our basic formal language (equations in particular) is fundamentally inadequate to deal with such issues, i.e. we need radically different formal language, which will *eventually* interface with the present one.

    So that, in particular, if gravity is "aware", we don't have formal means to address it.

    Of course, I do address in my essay a proposal for a new formalism.

    Hello Klingman,

    This was an interesting read and I'm sure it struck other peoples hearts as well. It was nice to hear of developments in gravity. The awareness view here presented has multiple corollaries. It would give some reason why the limited human brain can start to unravel the mysteries of the deep, if the mind is a part of the greater whole. The natural question is one of death of this great system, or perhaps more appropriately put, the existence of some outsides beyond an not find-able edge, or the initial conditions. It's tough to talk about science and such question without using somewhat religious terminology, which shows their close link concerning the impetus to arising thought. Yet, if science is to be maintained as a standard, facts and figures must be found to accompany this emotional progress on the gravity question in the community. Not to say you or anyone else hasn't, but on the whole and rather blatantly, most physicists are not working on it.

    Best,

    W. Amos

      Edwin,

      One reason they tend to be anti-intuitive is that while rational assumptions are concentrated on the known and thus incorporated information, non-linear activity is a scalar, so its like pressure seeking out weak points, while rationality and thus predictability tends to be focused on the prior, known features.

      The serial is linear, much as we move forward, while the non-linear is scalar and it equates to ones own bubble of awareness and how it expands and contracts, which explains why it is associated with the heart.

      Combine the two and you have consumption and digestion/consolidation, absorbing the information and energy for forward motion.

      Being a little too sensitive to other's presence, consciousness is very much a field in that respect. The problem is that most people are sensitized to those around them and naturally want to be either be part of the group, or, like us, avoid the group, while it is those with "thick-skins" who are better at climbing to the top of and controlling these communal hives. The result is that they end up breaking the methods of control when focused on more selfish ends. Much like monarchs and now bankers abused the means by which they served the larger community. Cycles within cycles.

      Edwin,

      Here is an interesting article about synaesthesia.

      For want of a better description, I've had a number of experiences where I wasn't sure the "me" was me, or the person I was with. Extrapolating that to life in general, we are all likely one large organism, seeing things through lots of different filters and perspectives. This goes back to my very simplistic observation that when we add things together, we get one of something larger, so we are not so much adding the contents of the sets of numbers, but adding the sets and getting a larger set. So therefore the parts add up to a larger whole, like the parts of our bodies add up to a whole body, not just a sum of parts. Extend this line of thinking to the larger community and it suggests ways to get around the social atomization currently defining our lives. Not that we necessarily want some kumbya thing, but how we relate to the entire environment in which we live. You might say we are what we are conscious of, rather than just the reductionistic neural functions.

      Hi Lev,

      You said "I just want to state a position regarding "awareness" radically different from those discussed here".

      I don't really think that's the case. When you asked for my definition, I told you that it was *not* thinking, etc. I believe that what von Neumann is discussing that "cannot fail to differ considerably from what we consciously and explicitly consider as mathematics", is thinking, not awareness. And I have already laid out in my essay and elsewhere that the essence of thinking *is* based on logical and mathematical circuitry (the math being mostly differencing operations and summing or integrating operation).

      And as for "if gravity is "aware", we don't have formal means to address it", I clearly state that also, and note that the mathematics only deals with the interface to the objective physical aspects of reality, not the subjective 'awareness' aspect of reality.

      This is neither pro nor con your 'new formalism' but I think you have not really understood my essay, because I do not see anything radically different in what you said above. It is essentially what I am saying. It may be that you do not recognize a difference between awareness and thinking, which is largely what I base my discussion on.

      Best,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman